Up the Ramp
by Hanna Marin
Summary: Someone on tumblr requested that I make a fic centered around Artie Abrams' after the car accident as a kid. Here it is.


Eight years old is, by most standards, fairly young. Artie thinks it's too young to hear his mom screaming into the phone about how a _public _school has the responsibility to serve the _public_, dammit, that it's not like he was _born_ with this, it just _happened_.

He doesn't really want to go to school, anyway. He doesn't know about anyone else who's in a wheelchair, and he knows people will push him to "help"(not thinking that this is like dragging someone who's standing and can walk fine to "help") without asking and will think that his chair is a toy, like some of the kids at the hospital who didn't know better. He doesn't want to sit outside during recess and watch everyone do things he can't do. 

He's fine with staying home and watching Boy Meets World, but his parents aren't.

Apparently he has to switch classes because only the portables have ramps. He can't take the school bus anymore, so his dad drives him, all the way to the back of the school, not in the line anymore like the rest of the families.

"Why didn't you stop in the line, daddy?"

"It'll take too long, pal. People aren't really patient."

When his dad leaves to get the wheelchair from the trunk, Artie tries again. His parents have tried to explain that "it's just science" that his legs won't move again, his doctor has even said that he's "sorry", but at this point Artie still believes in magic, at least a little.

So he wills, with all his might, to make one of his legs move. He's not even asking for a kick, just a tiny movement. A twitch. A…what's the word that his teachers used to ask him to stop doing? A "fidget", that's it.

His face is hot and tense by the time his dad opens his door and unfolds the chair for him.

His legs still haven't moved. Not one bit.

This is not a ramp.

Well, it is a ramp, technically. He can very easily get down it, once he's in the classroom, but he's never going to get in the classroom, because he can't wheel himself up by himself because it's too steep.

Why didn't anyone mention this?

Why did his dad only pat him on the shoulder and tell him "good luck" once he had deposited him at the playground?

A dark-haired girl in a high-collared dress sits on the bench outside of the ramp, scribbling away in a composition notebook covered with shiny gold stars.

He watches as a boy with dark, curly hair and bright green eyes runs past, sticks one hand out, and steals her notebook out from her lap. She stands up, her hands balled into fists of fury.

"Noah!" she yells, "You jerk! Give it back!"

He just cackles and runs to the other side of the playground.

Her eyes light on Artie, and she smiles at him.

"Hello. Are you new?" she asks, walking over to him.

"No. Aren't you going to go get that back?"

"No. He's taller than I am, I'm never able to catch him. I'll get it back eventually. I always do."

She sounds like the kids on television(he would know, he's watched a bunch of it since being in the hospital, not all of it "kid-friendly", as his mom would say). A mini-adult.

She walks over to him and extends a hand with nails cut as short as a boy's.

"I'm Rachel Berry."

He moves his right arm from its crossed position and takes hers, shaking it.

"Artie."

Apparently she's notices that he notices, because she says, very matter-of-factly, "I have to keep them that way for guitar and piano and violin. Do you play anything?"

"I play guitar," he admits, "a little."

A bunch of relatives left cards and gifts for him in the hospital because they didn't know if he was going to wake up(he had experienced a concussion and severe unconsciousness as well as paralysis), and then because they felt sorry for him. His favorite gift by far was the guitar he got from his uncle.

"Excellent," she says with a wide smile.

The bell rings, and kids begin to shove each other to get to the classroom doors.

"May I push you? I want to be an actress, among other things, and a dancer, so anything that is a new experience or warms up my arms is good."

"Sure," he says, and he's glad she's acting like he's the one doing her a favor. He's also pretty sure he likes her, since she didn't just push.

He dreams about himself dancing, and running, doing all the things he used to do without ever being thankful that he got to do them.

Sometimes he thinks those are worse than the nightmares about him lying on the ground of some strange, dark jungle, not being able to escape as the monsters come, because the happy ones remind him of things he once had but that are forever lost.

But they both pretty much suck(new word picked up from Puck, or "Noah", as Rachel calls him. They were introduced by Rachel and did a guitar duet for show and tell).

It hurts, years later, when Puck thinks it would be hilarious to tip him over in a port-a-pottie and torments him with the rest of the jocks in general. It's like he doesn't even remember him at all.

It hurts so much that he ends up telling Rachel she's irritating, despite the cookies she shared with him in grade school and the countless days in which she pushed him up the ramp.

But he hasn't forgotten his childhood. He doesn't think he ever will.


End file.
